March 31, 2008

If you’re not familiar with Gail Gaymer Martin’s fiction and blog, you’re missing out. For a thorough course in character development, I hope you’ll check out her recent blog posts. Print them out and you have an entire course on creating characters.

Here are some posts you won’t want to miss from her blog:

• Jan. 18–Birthing Realistic Characters
• Jan. 21–Defining Characters
• Jan. 24–Backstory and How to Use It Effectively
• Jan. 28–Characters’ Personalities and Names
• Jan. 31–Developing Characters’ Appearance
• Feb. 3–Dressing Characters
• Feb. 6–Characters and Their Mannerisms
• Feb. 10–Vocal Qualities and Characterization
• Feb. 13–Characters and Talking Without Words

March 24, 2008

Day One of my new resolve to act like a Nine-to-Fiver started out with a real bang. I woke up before midnight last night with a ripping headache–probably all the Easter candy I consumed yesterday–and I was awake till after 3 a.m. Mentally, I whined and griped to myself for a while. You know the routine: Every time I try to get a lot of work done, something happens to wreck it. I won’t be able to work a full day tomorrow on such little sleep. There go my plans of sleeping well, walking early, eating my healthy oatmeal, and getting to work at 8:30.

After a while, I got mad. Then I settled down and had another aha! moment. (This is another embarrassing thing to admit, as it’s a lesson I had known in my 20s and 30s but somehow forgot in a gigantic senior moment.) I recalled the day when my children were babies and preschoolers and elementary students. I was writing and teaching from home and speaking–and enduring a lot of surgeries. I was awake in the night quite often–I sometimes got my best work done then. What I didn’t do was lie in bed and tell myself that I’d be too tired the next day to feed the children, or change diapers, or help with homework. I just did it, no matter how I felt, because I wanted to be a good parent and I loved my kids.

What had happened? I’d turned into some kind of wimp over the years after they left home.

Enough whining, I finally told myself in the middle of the night. I went back to bed, slept a couple more hours, got up at 6:15 and did my three miles at 6:45, ate my healthy oatmeal breakfast, fetched my timer and got to work. (I’m up to 83 minutes and 12 seconds right now.) And truthfully, I feel pretty good. If nothing else, I’m gonna feel great about accomplishing the writing tasks on my list for today. I’ll also lay off the chocolate and probably sleep fine tonight.

Nike really knew what they were talking about, didn’t they? Just do it!

March 19, 2008

Late last night I returned from California’s Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. It was everything I had hoped for, and much more. I’ll be sharing bits and pieces in the coming weeks about some things I learned or saw there. One of the keynote speakers was Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the Left Behind series. After one speech, we were each surprised with a copy of his writing book, Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life. I was reading the book on the plane coming home, and the advice below struck a chord with me. (I had just spend five days listening to talks by bestselling, world famous writers. While I know we aren’t supposed to compare ourselves to others, it’s tough not to do. So this excerpt from his book was especially meaningful.)

“Don’t try to write a bestseller or be a modern-day Shakespeare. Simply write your best… If you’re committed to being the best you can be, you’ll achieve your best. If you’re halfhearted, you’ll be only that. I’m not saying that if you commit yourself 100 percent, you’ll sell a million copies, but I can promise you’ll be the best writer you can be. How bad to you want to be the best you can be?…Decide what’s important to you. You will always make the time to do what you really want to do. If your goal is to be the best you can be, you can arrive there every day.” Now that’s success!

His last statement was like a cup of cool water on a dry and thirsty day. Read it again. We can be successful every day if it’s a day we do the best we can with our writing. And if we continue to write every day, the best we can do next month or next year will be much higher than the best we can do today. Like so many things, it’s step by step. We don’t get better in our writing by giant leaps. We get better like the tortoise, not the hare: slow and steady is the pace, slow and steady wins the race.

Do you want to write better? Then commit to writing your best today…and tomorrow…and the next day. You can’t–in the end–be more successful than that. And it will have the added bonus of making your writing days a pleasure.

March 15, 2008

I usually post on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays–but I won’t be able to for a few days. I’ll be at the Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference March 14-18. I’m so excited to be going, and the Career Track looks wonderful. Some of the finest writers in the Christian field are on the faculty, and a large number of agents and editors will be in attendance as well. I’m sure I’ll have lots to share when I get back!

March 5, 2008

My friend Sherryl Clark, a much published and award-winning Australian writer, wrote about the myths and the realities of what it takes to become published. “Or,” as she says, “if you want more than that, what does it take to become a published, famous, well-paid (dare I say rich?) author? Let’s look at the myths first.” Be sure to read both posts. First come the myths, then the realities. The truth might be hard to swallow sometimes, but it’s the truth that sets one free. Read on for some valuable advice from someone who takes her own medicine–and loves to write!

“What Does It Take? The Myths”

“The Realities about What It Takes”

March 1, 2008

If you’re an aspiring writer and want to get a writers conference in your inbox, consider joining The Writer View. It’s free. It’s amazing. And, seriously, you’ll learn everything you’d learn at a writer’s conference (sans meeting cool people face to face), only you don’t have to pay airfare.

How they work: Each Monday and Thursday a panelist poses a question about the publishing industry, the craft of writing, or anything related to the writing journey. These panelists are agents, editors, writers who are well known in the Christian writing industry. Then, panelists and members write posts about the question raised. I still learn new things every week. It’s a moderated loop, so there’s no blatant self promotion. Word counts are limited to 250 per post.

If you’re a beginning to intermediate writer, the group to join is TWV 2. For advanced, published writers, join The Writers View.

You will be asked to fill out an application that you then send to the group’s leadership. You’ll receive an email letting you know whether you’ve been accepted.